Blackberries
by TheWayThingsCouldBe
Summary: Movie: The Good Girl.                  Justine has to make some choices about her relationship with Holden.


_I love The Good Girl... I just wish it could've had a happier ending. This is mine._

_I don't own The Good Girl or anything and I don't claim to._

_I just hope you like this. Please review if you do._

_And don't ask me why it's in the present tense. It just felt right, for some reason... Enjoy. _

* * *

"Hey Holden," Cheryl says and he looks up from his book at the check-out station. He doesn't say a word. "That is your name, right? Holden… you don't talk much." 

He keeps the book open on the counter when he looks up. "You've… never spoken to me."

"Well, it's just I see you talking to Justine all the time," she says, setting down the blush and mascara she's been applying in the mirror. The store is empty, Justine's not in yet, and she's bored with no customers to harass.

"She talked to me first."

"Well, now I'm talking to you first," she smiles. She leans over the table to see what he's reading, but he turns his body away from her, trying to hide, unsuccessfully. "_Catcher in the Rye_, huh? You know in the end he goes crazy."

A pause. "I've read it before."

"Well then I didn't ruin it for you." She looks around and no one's there. "So… what's going on with you and Justine, huh?"

He perks up a bit at the mention of her name, his somber look broken by a grin. She's never seen him smile. She's mesmerized by it.

"Nothin'," he lies.

"Just tell me, I won't tell a soul."

"Well I like her," he says, concealing a smile.

"Well, what is it that you like about her?" Cheryl prompts. "Is it her hair or… do you like older women? Cuz you know she's like eight years older than you…"

Holden turns inward. This is why he was trying to avoid this conversation in the first place.

She keeps staring.

"She gets me," he finally answers, hoping that it'll suffice, that she'll turn away. She doesn't.

"Well if you opened up more to people, they'd get you too." She flips her hair for him but he's reading again and doesn't see. "You know I'm about your age..." she leans in closer and waits for a response. She doesn't get one. "If you made an effort, you could be so much happier, Holden."

"Nope, that's okay," he says. He glances at his watch, then stares intently at the door. Waiting.

Justine walks in right on schedule, looking as flustered as usual, but when she sees Holden she smiles.

"Hey Holden," she waves as she checks in.

"Hi Justine." There's a dreamy quality to his voice.

"I had to… help my husband at the sperm bank," she explains, feeling nauseous.

Holden sees and interprets her sickness as disgust with her husband.

"Holden, I have to tell you something," she says, "and you have to promise me you won't be angry."

"At closing time," he says, his smile peeking through at her. "If it's bad news I wanna not know about it so I can enjoy the day just looking at you."

"Shh Holden, there are people here," she says, though it's only Cheryl and she's far off now that Justine's come in.

"Sorry," he says and he's happy for the rest of his workday that she's here.

* * *

Justine waits until she's driving Holden around before she tells him what happened between her and Bubba. 

He's clearly disgusted, first with what she's done, then with her. He can't even look at her now, and he tells her than he thought that things couldn't get worse but they always can be worse than they are, that things were going to get worse because of what she's done.

He calls her names he doesn't mean and he cusses at her and she convinces herself that this is all a mistake. She believes for a moment that Holden is just a menace and that she tells herself that it needs to end.

Holden starts crying now, and he apologizes for what he's said, and he starts making promises that she hopes he won't pull through on. He just doesn't want to be forsook. That's all, and he's willing to rob, to cheat, to kill for her and it scares her to the point where she's gonna leave him, or worse.

She remembers the berry stand, the blind man on the road selling the blackberries. They must be what killed Gwen, she thinks, and she truly believes that this is the best way it be rid of Holden.

Holden starts telling her they need a plan to make their living, but when she stops and buys a tin and places it in the car, Holden pauses and grows livid.

"You're tryin' to kill me, aren't you?" he says, crying, as he unbuckles his seatbelt. "I know they're what got Gwen, you said it yourself." He opens the car door as she's driving along way past the speed limit of 60 miles an hour. "I'll jump out n' kill myself if it'll be easier for you," he bawls, "you don't need to bother."

She screeches to a halt and he almost goes flying out the door. "Holden," she lies with a stern enough tone of voice so that he believes her. "I would _never_ try to do that to you. I don't want you to kill yourself, not never."

"Then why did you buy 'em, Justine? I know you're not stupid."

"I… I'm gonna give them to Phil and Bubba," she thinks on her feet.

Suddenly he's not crying anymore. He seems delighted.

"You're gonna do that for me?" he smiles. She nods abruptly and he leans over and kisses her, and she drives him back to the Retail Rodeo the rest of the way in silence with Holden beside her, a very pleased look on his face.

* * *

They've been at work for a while now and Jack Field chastises Holden for his behavior in the store while Justine sneaks off and "borrows" a home pregnancy test. The store won't miss it, she figures, as she takes it into the bathroom. 

Better than at home. Phil might see there. Besides, if she's pregnant, which she's hoping to God she isn't now, the baby isn't Phil's, she's sure. And if it's not his, he might not ever even need to know.

It comes out blue. She's pregnant.

And as much as this is not what she thought she wanted she's excited now. She's going to be a mama.

She tells Holden the news as soon as they're out of sight together and he grins the widest grin she's ever seen.

"It's my baby," he says and she nods. "This is our excuse to run away, Justine. I can feel it. Are you really gonna give the blackberries to your husband and his friend?"

She nods again.

"I love you, Justine," he says when she drops him off. "We can do this."

And as she sees him disappear into the doorway she believes that they can.

* * *

"Hey Phil," she says with a fake smile on her face as she places the tin of blackberries on the table. She can't believe she's going through with this. "I bought you and Bubba some berries and they're real sweet." She doesn't tell them she's pregnant. That wouldn't make much sense. 

"Aw, thank you Teeny," Phil comes in and kisses her before grabbing a handful. He doesn't even think of washing them.

Bubba comes in and says hi but he can't look at her now without feeling a twang of disappointment with her. He keeps his eyes away and turns to the berries.

In just a few moments they've all been devoured. In just a few more moments the both of them are on the couch, feeling very sick. Phil runs to the bathroom first and vomits.

"I think I should take you both to the hospital," Justine says automatically, unable to believe what she was doing. What she had done. _If they die_, she thinks, _this is my fault._ The thought is as suffocating as it is liberating.

Bubba sicks up on the car ride to the hospital and Phil explains that they must have gotten sick from something in the paint they used today-that it was a strange shade of green neither of the painters had seen before today. The thought that it's the blackberries doesn't cross the mind of either.

They're admitted to the hospital soon enough and Justine waits all night with her husband. This feels wrong, and again she can't bring herself to accept that she's doing this all for Holden. Phil and Bubba are pigs, but they don't deserve to die, she thinks.

She goes to work during the days and comes back at nights. Holden wonders why she's sticking by her husband's side when she has nothing good to say about him. She wonders the same things too, and she understands why Holden is angry she won't spend the night with him again.

But she explains to him that she has to wait for the right moment. He can't understand why now isn't the right moment, says that she's just holding on because she's too afraid. But she knows it's not that time yet.

Bubba's fully recovered in a few days. They say it's something he's ingested, and he accepts that it was something in the paint. He doesn't think of suing the paint company and neither does his still-ailing best friend because they don't have the minds to do it.

Phil stays in the hospital for weeks longer and, like the doting wife she's pretending to be, Justine comes in and stays each night with him.

But one day while Justine's at work, Bubba brings Phil the mail from home and he receives the credit card bill with all of the stays at the Motel Glen Capri. Phil asks Bubba if he knows what's been going on and when the response is "No" Phil notices the lie in Bubba's voice. He doesn't say anything after that.

Justine arrives at the hospital just after work to see that Phil is furious with her.

"Have you been sleeping around my back?" he asks with tears in his eyes.

"Yes," she answers right away, not sure of why but knowing immediately the truth is the correct answer.

He's shaken by her response. "Teeny… Justine," he says. "I can't believe you."

"I'm sorry…" she says and tries to approach him, but she doesn't want to be near him now. He's getting violent.

"I want a divorce," he says and won't say anything else about that. "Now get out."

"Phil…" she tries to reason, "just hear me out…"

"I said get out," he says through his teeth.

Now she's angry. He is a pig. One who never listens to what she has to say, one who has never appreciated her in their seven years of marriage.

She can't control herself. "Well, guess what?" she shouts as she's leaving. "I'm pregnant and the baby ain't yours."

And as she turns away she sees the anger on his face turn into sorrow and grief and even as he tries to call her back into the hospital room she feels as if she's made the right choice.

* * *

She gets all of her things together and throws them in a couple of suitcases now, surprised with how few the things she has are. 

They all fit nice in the trunk of her car and she can't believe it's really happening as she pulls into Holden's driveway.

She knocks on the door and asks if she can come in to see Holden and Mr. Worther lets her in.

Soon she knocks on his door and as he opens it the look on his face turns from the face of one about to commit suicide to the face of a kid on Christmas morning.

"Justine," he says and kisses her almost too passionately in the hall, getting carried away. He pulls back. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm running away with you," she answers. His eyes grow. It's only a moment before he's grabbed a couple of suitcases himself and grins wide as he pulls them out the door. She notices now that his room is even emptier than before. He's been ready for this moment for a while.

"Bye," Holden tells his folks like he's just going out for a moment.

"Bye, Tom," his mother responds. Mr. Worther remains silent.

And as he throws his stuff in the back of the car he gives her another one of his overzealous kisses and smirks wide.

"Where are we goin'?" he asks.

"Away…" she answers and she knows in her heart she has made the right choice, "together, off into the wilderness. Never to be heard from again."

* * *

But it's not all true. Before they're never heard from again she writes a letter to Phil. 

It's after the baby's born, and they call her Phoebe after the character from _Catcher in the Rye, _and she's so beautiful and they know she's theirs.

Phil's home from the hospital now, she's sure of it, unless he's died. It's been nine months, she figures.

Either way she writes him a letter:

_Phil,_

_I never told you this, because I couldn't say it before, but I really am sorry for what I did. I thought maybe you wanted to know who it was that I was with, and I want you to know that I slept with Bubba. I want you to know, though, that now I ain't ever coming back, so don't wait for me. And I've already had the baby. She's a girl, and maybe Bubba's._

_With Regret,_

_Justine_


End file.
